T510 Constant Lockups

I recently purchased a Lenovo T510 notebook and had an immediately apparent problem... Within 5 hours the entire machine would lock up and become unresponsive (as though Explorer was crashing). You can still move the mouse, but nothing else reponds...

Updated all Windows 7 Professional drivers, no result. Installed all available Windows Updates, no result. Updated BIOS, no result. After some playing I came to realize it ONLY seemed to lockup on AC power. Disabled power management and adjusted power settings, no result. Tested RAM, tested hard disk, ran system file checker, no problems found. Within about 2 hours (sometimes as little as 5 minutes) after plugging the laptop in, it would hang... Eventually I thought it was simply some software glitch (hey, it happens) and decided to completely format and reinstall from OEM media. This COMPLETELY resolved all issues with lockups... Now for the rest of the story:

Over the last 2 months I have since purchased 3 more Lenovo T510 notebooks and each one has the EXACT same issue. Out of the box they lockup when connected to AC power (and very intermittently without AC power), but the problem can be resolved by completely formatting the hard disk, manually installing all drivers, and continuing on.

WHAT GIVES HERE LENOVO? This product hardware/software build is clearly not being tested thoroughly before being shipped...! Anyone else have any resolution to this issue? I did use the hard disk partition to recover one time, but low and behold, the same problem resurfaced! Something is definitely WRONG with the Lenovo software package that shipped on these machines...

I am currently experimenting with disabling the "Lenovo Airbag" technology (by disabling it) to see if this might be the cause, but I cannot see how it would change when AC power is connected...

Any comments? I have seen the same issue listed several times with other T400/T500 models, but usually people just do not have the time to try everything systematically and come to the same conclusion(s). Hope it helps someone!

Re: T510 Constant Lockups

I am having exactly the same problem. Everything suddenly stops. Laptop is a T510 purchased about 3 weeks ago. In my case, the mouse doesn't even move. Can't get to task manager - keyboard also seems locked. The only solution is to do a hard power off by holding down the power switch until the computer shuts off. This very frustrating because because things are not saved when this happens.

Video card is NVIDIA NVS 3100M. Does this have anything to do with it?

The video display is also a problem when I am running AutoCAD. It just hangs.

I cannot go through setting up this system again and I would prefer not to have to bring this to a technician because I do not have another computer and I need to work.

Brief research on the internet sugesst it might be an electrical problem?

Re: T510 Constant Lockups

Spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Lenovo attempting to resolve this issue. Eventually they agreed to contact the "engineering and SOE" teams and try to find out why these T510s are locking up. All the T510s I have purchased have been 32-bit, but the resolution regarding the Intel driver does not help at all...

When the T510 is manually formatted, then drivers manually installed everything works just fine, even when the SAME drivers are used for the hardware leading me to believe that the issue is some part of Lenovo's ThinkVantage toolbox that runs umpteen processes in the background...

I have also disabled the Drive Protection System (sometimes labeled Air Bag) completely and still have the same problems. Occasionally it is a complete hard lockup, other times I can actually move the mouse but all else failes to respond.

Hopefully Lenovo can figure this out. Strange that out of the box soo many machines seem to have this issue, even over the course of a couple of months. TEST THE DARN MACHINES BEFORE YOU SHIP THEM!

Re: T510 Constant Lockups

Received my T510 with 128GB SSD and Windows XP and having the same problem of the laptop seeming to freeze up for several seconds with the harddrive (SSD in my case) access light ON solid. This happens fairly regularly (every few minutes).

Here's what I've tried so far to no avail. I'm hoping to NOT have to reformat and start over after having spent a couple of days loading applications and setting up the machine.

* Tried disabling Norton Firewall and Virus Scan.

* Excluded network and external drives from Norton idle scan.

* Turned off Indexing Service for C: (SSD) and turned off System Restore - this seems to be a universal recommendation for SSD's.

* Used ThinkVantage System Updater to get all new drivers.

* Used Microsoft Update to get all new software updates.

* Turned off Active Protection System (since I have SSD)

* Went to ThinkVantage Power Manager and changed Power Scheme to Max Performance.

If I have Windows Task Manager open when it freezes up, that window stops updating during the freeze also. The machine is really fast when it is not freezing up, but this is obviously a deal breaker. We've used nothing but Thinkpad T-series in our company for the past 10 years or so, but that may be coming to a sorry end after this experience. We'd appreciate any tips you guys can find. I'm hoping it'll be as simple as an errant Thinkpad driver that gets updated to cure this problem?

Re: T510 Constant Lockups

Your situation is difficult to troubleshoot - lots of variables. I don't know how technically minded you are, or how much you have in way of resources to fix this (both time and perhaps spare drives, etc.) In case like this, my inclination would be to use a drive imaging tool to create exact image of your currently loaded system, saved to an external drive and then restore ThinkPad to factory load. You could have bad hardware, but if you've already customized your system and installed programs, harder to identify. Either way, you can restore your current config exactly (and quickly) on the same system or a replacement system. (Note: if not familiar with imaging of drives, perhaps not the best time to try it, but I want to provide some overall info on this post for you as well as others.)

Technical aside: On imaging software, for last 10 years I've used Acronis with great satisfaction, but their current offerings don't restore images back with the required partition alignment for SSD drives. (BIG issue with SSD drives, and important for people trying to move existing installations on traditional hard drives to SSD.) I haven't tried Paragon yet, but they have backup imaging/restore software that preserves the SSD (and Windows 7) partition alignment.

Having just set up a T510 4313-CTO and upgraded HDD to SSD after much research on the SSD subject, I want to comment on some of what you wrote, since there are a lot of opinions on "best" practices for SSD drives, and many are misguided, and far from "universal." I upgraded the T510 with an Intel X25-M 160GB drive after research that helped me decide it was the "best" for my needs (and likely the most reliable.) My thoughts:

* Indexing: While indexing certainly helps speed up searches for traditional HDD drives, there is nothing inherently wrong with using it with SSD. In fact, with documents etc. indexed, searches for those files is instantaneous with an SSD. Windows 7 doesn't index the entire drive, just the user folders by default, and besides, customizing the areas to index is not that difficult. Indexing will not slow down an SSD (however rebuilding an index from scratch or starting it up from non-indexed state will require time for Windows to build the index that first time. This process, however, is MUCH shorter with an SSD than with a traditional drive.

The historical reasons people believe indexing is either bad or unnecessary on SSDs are: 1) Belief a fast drive doesn't need it. > In fact, having content of documents instantly available for searches is a huge benefit, and trying to search for certain words, let's say, in thousands of documents, is far better than doing a 'manual' search this way. I have indexing on with Windows 7, restricted primarily to areas of documents and photos, music, etc, and it's brilliant! Indexing on makes having an SSD even more "mind blowing" in terms of speed, trust me I've tried it both ways!

The other reason people have claimed indexing is 'bad' is the fact that SSDs have a limited number of disk writes per cell, and this has led to a worry that you should have as few files as possible writing to disk, and additional "writes" are to be avoided. Personally I believe this came out of early adopters and system tweakers "obsessive compulsive" mindset, where they are more focused on comparing their benchmarks scores, or trying to foresee future but unproven reliability "issues". Manufacturers have designed these drives to effectively deal with this, and with "wear-leveling" and the feature called Trim basically precludes a user having to worry about manual optimization (I'm simplifying here, I realize.) The newest SSD drives are designed to be USED, but many people have this irrational fear that they need to watch out for every file written. It's a very misguided perspective. (And sure, SSDs don't have the monster capacities yet, so storing massive archived data files might not be the best use of that storage space, but turning off an incredibly useful tool like indexing is not the way to go.)

* RE: System Restore: What I wrote above applies here too, however with System restore there are a few other considerations. Turning it completely off can fry your bacon when you one day need it to save your butt! It's one of those features that operate in the background but can really be a lifesaver when you actually need it. The 2 issues: "lost" storage space for restore points, and lowered "performance" when restore points are created. Point 1 (no pun intended,) - decrease the space reserved from the default, and how much is a personal choice. I want System Restore available for the most recent past, since I know when something has screwed up. I won't be restoring back to weeks or months in the past, because too many other programs might be impacted. Thus, on a 128GB drive (in your case,) the default might be 10% but I would consider going down to 1-2%. This way very little space is reserved, but enough to roll back the clock if you screw something up short-term. How much is up to personal choice, but definitely be skeptical of those "guides" that tell you to just turn it off completely!

The other point - performance. Once again, the time needed to store a restore point on an SSD is much less than a traditional drive, and they are only made when "needed" so you're not suffering any real-world performance hit. I wish there were not so many "guides for best SSD performance" that miss the mark.

Oh, one important and not often publicized issue with System Restore and Norton: Most Norton antivirus products have a feature (and option in settings to turn off) called Norton Product Tamper Protection. If it is ON when trying to do a Windows System Restore, the restore will (fail) with message, "Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored..." You must turn off the tamper protection before restoring a restore point. Symantec support article Sorry to go a bit off topic, but that issue was a huge one for me, and wish I had known about it from the start. Small thing to adjust when the time comes, but scary if you don't know that Norton is reason your System Restore was failing.

I realize I have not perhaps directly helped in terms of why the T510 is locking up, but hopefully helped you NOT go in the wrong direction in terms of SSD choices. Since SSD is from Lenovo, it's likely a Samsung. You might check their site for any special info regarding those drives, and drive controller drivers updates etc that are recommended, although Lenovo support should have anything important in the matrix.

Wishing you the best of luck (or perhaps, since it's been a month, you've resolved it, but hope my SSD advice helps your overall knowledge.)

Re: T510 Constant Lockups

Have any of you tried backing up your system and restoring to the Lenovo factory load to isolate whether it's hardware and/or drivers direct from Lenovo that is causing your lockups, or something you installed or changed yourself after initial use? (There are limitless installations of software that can create the situation you describe.) Also, have you tried checking the Event Viewer for problems in the logs?

I can also now verify that Acronis True Image 2010 (and new version 2011) will properly create a full backup of your drive, including SSD drives and restore back again with the correct alignment for SSDs / Windows 7. (That is assuming the alignment was correct to begin with - you can't change the alignment that's already there, but if your system came with Win7 pre-installed, then the alignment will be correct.)

If you don't understand drive imaging, the point of a program like Acronis True Image is to relatively quickly create a full backup "image" of the entire drive, with all partitions, and save that image on an external or separate storage drive. You can then later restore your system exactly as it was at the time of the backup. Creating images or restoring from them is MUCH faster than file-based backups and restore.

If I were in your position, I would use a program like Acronis to image the drive. Then use the Lenovo Product Recovery disks to restore the ThinkPad to the "factory state" you received it from Lenovo. If you haven't created (burned) those disks yet, you should, as per: Creating Recovery Media in Windows 7 NOTE: On creating recovery media, Lenovo documentation is not clear on this, but if you are burning Recovery Media to CD/DVD, the first disk, "Boot Media", will be a Boot disk, and it can be a CD/R. (I suggest CD-R for that first, boot disk.) Then the remaining, "Data Media" disks burned will be most practical as DVD-R, in which case you will burn 2 DVDs to complete the recovery set (for a total of 3 disks.) I do not know how many CD-Rs are needed if you don't use DVDs, but it will be substantially more. You can also restore your ThinkPad to factory load at boot-time via the blue ThinkVantage button, but it's prudent to create your Recovery Media on disks just to be sure you have them safely available.

Once your ThinkPad is back in factory loaded state, see if you are experiencing the lockups. If not, it's obviously NOT the hardware. Then next step I would update Lenovo drivers (use System Update for ease of that,) and also all appropriate Microsoft updates, and nothing else, and see if lockups occur. It's time consuming to troubleshoot, I know, but otherwise you cannot know for sure if you bought a defective computer, or if you have installed something later that is conflicting or causing a problem. But if you have your image-based backup, you can restore to your currently configured system in probably 45 minutes (depending on how much data you've saved to your drives.)